Transitional release on the path to desktop/mobile convergence.

Ubuntu 13.04, scheduled for release on April 25, is now available for testing in its second and final beta release. Nicknamed "Raring Ringtail," Ubuntu 13.04 is one of the final releases that's just for desktops and servers. By this time next year, Canonical intends to release a single version of Ubuntu targeting all form factors, including smartphones and tablets.

Ubuntu developers decided to disable a tool that allows easy installation of Ubuntu alongside an existing Windows instance. Wubi, short for Windows-based Ubuntu Installer, lets users install Ubuntu on the same disk partition as a Windows instance. "Due to various bugs in Wubi that have not been addressed in time for this Final Beta, the Ubuntu team will not be releasing the Wubi installer with 13.04," a Raring Ringtail technical overview states. "Combined with the fact that Wubi has not been updated to work with Windows 8, and the focus on mobile client over desktop, the Foundations team does not expect Wubi to be in a releasable state for 13.04."

This doesn't mean users can't dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu. Without Wubi, dual-booting is slightly more complicated to set up and requires separate disk partitions.

One new feature originally planned for 13.04 which didn't make the cut is Smart Scopes. The Smart Scopes aim to enhance the Unity desktop's Dash overlay by providing more data sources to answer users' search queries. The goal is to add many, many scopes, but "[t]he Ubuntu experience would be compromised if all those scopes were running all the time," a wiki page notes. "The goal of the Smart Scopes project is to intelligently decide, for a given query, which scopes are likely to be most relevant to that query so that those scopes can be chosen to be started and return results."

Smart Scopes has been delayed until Ubuntu 13.10, the release in October of this year. "After an extensive amount of work to get the feature ready, unfortunately the dash team doesn’t consider it mature enough for 13.04—it is nearly there, but doesn’t meet the quality needs for Ubuntu," Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon wrote.

One side effect of this decision is that users still have just two choices when it comes to whether the Dash should or shouldn't search the Internet in addition to the local machine. "The loss of Smart Scopes also means that privacy enhancements due in 13.04 to give more granular control over what resources are searched also isn't included and users are left with 12.10's 'all online resources' or 'no online resources' switch," an H-online article states.

Ubuntu 13.04 isn't just about missing features. Unity saw some user interface changes designed to speed up productivity, for example, by making it easier to switch between multiple open windows of the same application, as described by the Ubuntu and Linux news site WebUpd8. "If an application has two or more open windows, users can switch between those open windows by scrolling on the application icon in the Unity Launcher," WebUpd8 states. The Dash has also received performance improvements, and overlay scrollbars.

Raring Ringtail is based on Linux kernel version 3.8.5 and includes both Python 2 and Python 3.3. "We eventually intend to ship only Python 3 with the Ubuntu desktop image, not Python 2," the Raring Ringtail technical overview page says. "If you have your own programs based on Python 2, fear not! Python 2 will continue to be available (as the python package) for the foreseeable future."

13.04 is the midway point in Ubuntu's two-year release cycle. Long Term Support versions are released once every two years and are supported for five years. Additional versions such as 13.04, less stable than Long Term Support ones, are produced every six months. Ubuntu developers have considered ditching the six-month interim releases in favor of "rolling releases" that push new features out more frequently, but no such change has been made as of yet.

Ubuntu did, however, reduce the length of time that interim releases receive support, from 18 months to 9 months. Ubuntu developers also decided to let users "continuously track the development focus of Ubuntu," letting users automatically receive the latest updates to Ubuntu's development releases without having to explicitly upgrade from one version to another. This gives users something like a rolling release if they want to test out the latest updates, which may be unstable.

108 Reader Comments

That's a bit dramatic. WUBI doesn't qualify as a dual-boot in my book, or most anyone else's. It's an ephemeral copy of Ubuntu, as it can literally vanish at any moment if Windows touches the files in the wrong way, isn't on a separate partition, uses the existing Windows bootloader, and always seems to have problems after more than a few days.

I understand that it is explained properly within the body of the article, but some people will probably interpret that as "You can't dual boot ubuntu anymore. You must go all or nothing."

First off, the "Windows dual-boot tool" is not discontinued. That'd be GRUB. What's disabled is Wubi, which allowed you to have a virtual Linux installation on top of your Windows installation, without having to repartition your hard drive.

Secondly, I can't believe Ubuntu is already up to R. Makes me wonder what happens after Zanfabulous Zebra.

Been using the development release for a while now and it seems to be very well put together. I triple boot with Windows 7 and Kubuntu 12.10 and I haven't had any problems at all. With the new Unity tweak tool Unity can be almost as customizable than Kubuntu with KDE. I'm glad the users are being giving some control back.

I remember - 5-6 years ago, my friend installed Ubuntu on his laptop in a dual boot setup. When he turned on the laptop, he had only few seconds to select Windows or, it would by default boot into Ubuntu.

I think it was pretty lame because on Ubuntu's part .If someone has both OSes, 95% of the time they would be using Windows.

It took him more than a year to realize that the default could be changed to Windows. There were no options displayed on the initial screen. He had to go into some setting buried deep inside Ubuntu to do that.

It's been a while since I used Ubuntu, but IIRC, you can pick which one's the default during the installation process.

I remember - 5-6 years ago, my friend installed Ubuntu on his laptop in a dual boot setup. When he turned on the laptop, he had only few seconds to select Windows or, it would by default boot into Ubuntu.

The usual timeout is 10 seconds, which is actually a pretty good amount of time.

Quote:

I think it was pretty lame because on Ubuntu's part .If someone has both OSes, 95% of the time they would be using Windows.

It's just a default. Of course, were it Microsoft it would simply wipe out the boot loader and leave the other OS inaccessible.

Quote:

It took him more than a year to realize that the default could be changed to Windows. There were no options displayed on the initial screen. He had to go into some setting buried deep inside Ubuntu to do that.

I think it was pretty lame because on Ubuntu's part .If someone has both OSes, 95% of the time they would be using Windows.

Not by a long shot. But then again, if it took that long to figure out how to tweak the grub configuration, maybe they should stick to windoze.

Let's be honest. Most people who download Ubuntu play with it for few hours, realize that it's just a gimmic and you can't really do anything useful, and give up, never to use it again.

Oh and I didn't say it took that long to "figure out" how to do it. I said it took that long to "realize" that it was possible to do so.

In my experience, which is with people who are averagely computer literate, most people who download Ubuntu play with it for a few hours/days, realise it's far more powerful and configurable than Windows, yet easy to use, and continue with it as a dual boot before eventually dropping Windows altogether.

I'm just hoping that before they release 14.04 they come up with a better file manager than Nautilus. The search feature in Nautilus sucks. Nautilus just does the bare minimum and leaves little for power users.

I remember - 5-6 years ago, my friend installed Ubuntu on his laptop in a dual boot setup. When he turned on the laptop, he had only few seconds to select Windows or, it would by default boot into Ubuntu.

I think it was pretty lame because on Ubuntu's part .If someone has both OSes, 95% of the time they would be using Windows.

It took him more than a year to realize that the default could be changed to Windows. There were no options displayed on the initial screen. He had to go into some setting buried deep inside Ubuntu to do that.

Did you try booting Linux using Windows bootloader? Try and then tell me which is easier.

In my experience, which is with people who are averagely computer literate, most people who download Ubuntu play with it for a few hours/days, realise it's far more powerful and configurable than Windows, yet easy to use, and continue with it as a dual boot before eventually dropping Windows altogether.

In my experience as someone who is above averagely computer literate and downloaded Ubuntu to play with for a short time, I categorically disagree with your assertion.

I just hope they'll let you move the sidebar without installing a potentially X-breaking modification to Unity. For many people new to Linux, Ubuntu is the first step, and the sidebar is awkward; it's in an odd place (relative to both windows and mac, at the very least) and tinkering with X can break it, necessitating a full reinstall, which can push people away from Linux.

Wait, what am I thinking? Canonical doesn't care about adding something that simple. This is how they like it, so it best be how you like it.

I'm just hoping that before they release 14.04 they come up with a better file manager than Nautilus. The search feature in Nautilus sucks. Nautilus just does the bare minimum and leaves little for power users.

Actually, I really like Nautilus. In fact, it was one of the primary reasons why I quickly abandoned Windows as my primary OS after first trying Ubuntu back in 2006. I rarely use search for local files, since I keep them well organized in a sensible hierarchy, but the List view mode in Nautilus is awesome because it lets you expand your folders and files in a single pane (unlike Windows Explorer, which has separate folder tree pane, and files pane). Also, Nautilus has tabs, though I think this was added after I started using it.

I started out using Ubuntu in a VM, just to try out this great "Linux" that I'd heard so much about. I liked it, so I installed it using Wubi, since I was too afraid to totally switch. Initially I used it in experimental bursts, but over time, that install began to feel very personalized and I started to use it almost full-time. That was a few years ago. Now I use a real Ubuntu install full time on my desktop and I consider myself to be a power user! I have a love/hate relationship with Unity. I've tried it, customized the shit out of it, then switched to GNOME 3, KDE 4, LXDE, and back again to Unity. I think I just like to tinker with my desktop too much. Anyways, I'm kinda sad to see Wubi go, since its a nice training wheel for a beginner, but I'm glad that they're trying to improve Unity and update more often.

Let's be honest. Most people who download Ubuntu play with it for few hours, realize that it's just a gimmic and you can't really do anything useful, and give up, never to use it again.

This is the exact opposite of my experience. Every baby-boomer-owned computer I've put Ubuntu on has turned out almost exactly the same: They resist at first, but after the nth time Windows fails them they VERY grudgingly decide to let me dual-boot Ubuntu. After I install Ubuntu they UNANIMOUSLY say "I can't believe how FAST my computer is!". I then get 2 to 3 questions over the next week or so and don't hear from them again for 6 months to a year regarding computer issues. UBUNTU. IS. BLISS.

When they need to boot into Windows, they still hate their computers. QuickBooks is the most common application I've encountered sans Linux support. Although Linux has some very nice (FREE) accounting and finance apps, -everyone- (accountants) uses QuickBooks. So now my clients aren't just saying "Windows sucks".....they're saying QUICKBOOKS sucks, because that is their only experience with the slow and frustrating Windows side of their computer.

Anyway... I've personally been using Ubuntu since 2009, and only booting into Windows to play games. There are LOTS of games available on Linux now though, so with 12.10 I've finally ditched Windows altogether. It's been about 3 months now since I have not had Windows on my computer, and except for Blizzard games, I've had NO desire to put it back on.

Finally, in the past 3 years, my totally-computer-illiterate mom has gone from complete fear and frustration on multiple Windows computers to 100% committed and even evangelizing Ubuntu. She even did her own upgrade and everything. Cheers mom.

@zack_125 Although I've not tried Ubuntu lately VMs are a great way to dip your toes into an OS if you're not sure. For instance I'm currently trying out Win8 using VMware Player (not convinced). Might be trying Ubuntu again real soon.

In my experience, which is with people who are averagely computer literate, most people who download Ubuntu play with it for a few hours/days, realise it's far more powerful and configurable than Windows, yet easy to use, and continue with it as a dual boot before eventually dropping Windows altogether.

In my experience as someone who is above averagely computer literate and downloaded Ubuntu to play with for a short time, I categorically disagree with your assertion.

I just hope they'll let you move the sidebar without installing a potentially X-breaking modification to Unity. For many people new to Linux, Ubuntu is the first step, and the sidebar is awkward; it's in an odd place (relative to both windows and mac, at the very least) and tinkering with X can break it, necessitating a full reinstall, which can push people away from Linux.

Wait, what am I thinking? Canonical doesn't care about adding something that simple. This is how they like it, so it best be how you like it.

I quite like the bar on the side, it makes more sense to me given the dimensions of most screens. I've been changing Windows/ OS X to the side since before Ubuntu even did that. I agree, though, that a benefit of the latter two is that they're easily changed!

Secondly, I can't believe Ubuntu is already up to R. Makes me wonder what happens after Zanfabulous Zebra.

Always Awesome American Anteater?

Annelid Antelope?

I can't believe we're predicting the silly ubuntu codename 4 and a half years in advance.

Analytic artichoke! No. That's not an animal...

I should say though, I've got the beta on my netbook, and so far the animations are much smoother and responsive than 12.04, and the dash doesn't take as long to open up. If you found 12.10 slow, as I've heard in many reviews, this one you should try out - it should work much faster I think.

I just hope they'll let you move the sidebar without installing a potentially X-breaking modification to Unity. For many people new to Linux, Ubuntu is the first step, and the sidebar is awkward; it's in an odd place (relative to both windows and mac, at the very least) and tinkering with X can break it, necessitating a full reinstall, which can push people away from Linux.

Wait, what am I thinking? Canonical doesn't care about adding something that simple. This is how they like it, so it best be how you like it.

As a long-time Ubuntu fan, I completely AGREE with you. People should be given an EASY option to move the sidebar around as they please. Period.

That said, on modern wide-screen monitors, putting nav buttons and options on the bottom and/or top, rather than the side is a totally inefficient use of screen real-estate. I booted into Windows 7 the other day on a client's computer. I felt like I was looking through the narrow slit of a tank. It was both comical and sad. F11 is your friend. And so are navs that use screen real estate in a logical manner.

That's a bit dramatic. WUBI doesn't qualify as a dual-boot in my book, or most anyone else's. It's an ephemeral copy of Ubuntu, as it can literally vanish at any moment if Windows touches the files in the wrong way, isn't on a separate partition, uses the existing Windows bootloader, and always seems to have problems after more than a few days.

I understand that it is explained properly within the body of the article, but some people will probably interpret that as "You can't dual boot ubuntu anymore. You must go all or nothing."

I agree, overly dramatic headline.

Wubi!? Real Linux users use GRUB! Installing from a Live USB/CD does a pretty good job of identifying Windows partitions and walking users through the process of allocating disk space for Ubuntu.

That said, on modern wide-screen monitors, putting nav buttons and options on the bottom and/or top, rather than the side is a totally inefficient use of screen real-estate. I booted into Windows 7 the other day on a client's computer. I felt like I was looking through the narrow slit of a tank. It was both comical and sad. F11 is your friend. And so are navs that use screen real estate in a logical manner.

Yes, yes, and the global menu. After installing Ubuntu I do not hate the vertical resolution stealing wide monitors that much any more.

I always get perplexed when I see that OSX does not know this trick and wastes those precious pixels.

I booted into Windows 7 the other day on a client's computer. I felt like I was looking through the narrow slit of a tank. It was both comical and sad. F11 is your friend. And so are navs that use screen real estate in a logical manner.

With the fun difference that it's trivial on Windows to move the bar around (I have it on the left because I fully agree with your sentiment). It's rather sad when Windows offers more easy customization options than a Linux distribution

That said: Wait, you could install Ubuntu on the same partition as Windows? Never knew and considering the gigantic technical hurdles (which don't seem to have been completely overcome considering the mention of bugs), I think I wouldn't have liked it anyhow, but interesting nonetheless. That said installing ubuntu is *really* simple these days, some other distributions would do good to copy a bit from canonical here.

And really does *every* thread about a linux distribution or windows have to deteriorate in a Windows vs. Linux (vs. Mac) discussion? Rabid linux and windows fans are a disgrace for both operating systems. And at least for the linux fans I have a nice quote:

Quote:

I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease.

That said, on modern wide-screen monitors, putting nav buttons and options on the bottom and/or top, rather than the side is a totally inefficient use of screen real-estate. I booted into Windows 7 the other day on a client's computer. I felt like I was looking through the narrow slit of a tank. It was both comical and sad. F11 is your friend. And so are navs that use screen real estate in a logical manner.

Yes, yes, and the global menu. After installing Ubuntu I do not hate the vertical resolution stealing wide monitors that much any more.

I always get perplexed when I see that OSX does not know this trick and wastes those precious pixels.

Here's a quick question: right now, I've got my machine set up with a 120 GB SSD and a 1 TB hard drive. Windows and some of my main apps sit on the SSD, data and the rest of my apps (*cough*games*cough*) sit on the platter drive.

I really don't want to mess around with the SSD, as I've got things pretty well set up there. I'm tempted, however, to install a Linux distro on my big platter drive, or toss in an older small platter drive just for Linux. In that scenario, would just changing the boot drive in my BIOS let me choose which OS loads, or do I need to do any GRUB work on either drive?

I started out using Ubuntu in a VM, just to try out this great "Linux" that I'd heard so much about. I liked it, so I installed it using Wubi, since I was too afraid to totally switch. Initially I used it in experimental bursts, but over time, that install began to feel very personalized and I started to use it almost full-time. That was a few years ago. Now I use a real Ubuntu install full time on my desktop and I consider myself to be a power user! I have a love/hate relationship with Unity. I've tried it, customized the shit out of it, then switched to GNOME 3, KDE 4, LXDE, and back again to Unity. I think I just like to tinker with my desktop too much. Anyways, I'm kinda sad to see Wubi go, since its a nice training wheel for a beginner, but I'm glad that they're trying to improve Unity and update more often.

you my friend should try Cinnamon, it's based on Gnome but is incredibly simple and easy to customize and surprisingly pretty!